Immigration & Civil Rights

The City of Las Cruces is home to one of the most important corridors of the historic Camino Real. For much longer than we’ve been Americans, this land, and the people who lived here, traded and moved about freely from Santa Fe to Mexico City as one community. Even in the early days of this country, Mexican families who lived here were absorbed into this territory and made Americans by default. For many Mexican Americans living in this region today, the border crossed them.

As a first-generation American with family living on both sides of the US-Mexico border, I strongly value and honor our binational culture that exists today. I also understand the complex economic, public safety, and social factors that lead to the migration of people across borders, and I understand that to address the issues of immigration, we must look at and address their root causes, rather than combat the symptoms.

Las Cruces is a city rich in diversity and home to multicultural people, many whom have lived here for decades and others who have come here recently looking for an opportunity to have a better life and provide for their families. All should be welcome and embraced in our city.

Our nation is in dire need of comprehensive immigration reform, and the lack of leadership in Congress has had tremendously negative impacts on our border communities, which are often painted as lawless, crime-infested places in dire need of more border security and law enforcement. We know that’s not the truth, and I’ll fight to protect all people in our community and send a message to those who would impose fear in our communities and push false narratives that divide, rather than unite us. America is rightfully so the home of the free and the land of opportunity. Those who come here seeking a better life, who are willing to work hard and play by the rules, deserve to experience that America. And when they do, we all prosper.